A Musing Maralee

January 13, 2013
by Maralee
2 Comments

A Life in Status- January #2, 2013

10 minutes before it’s time to pick-up Josh from school = when the three little ones finally decide to fall asleep for their nap

In case you’re wondering, about 30 hours after purchasing a new white shower curtain your children will decide it would be an excellent place to wipe their dirty hands and faces.

Josh: Mom, I want to give Danny some of my money. He’s just being such a great brother.
Me: Josh, I love your giving heart.
Josh: It’s NOT my giving heart. It’s just what I do. It’s just what my brain makes me do.
Glad we got that all clarified.

Moms of toddlers get really good at cleaning footprints off of toilet seats.

Me: Josh, if you have a friend over you can NOT have underwear on your floor.
Josh: Okay. But Mom, they’re just tiny pants.
#awkwardtruth

My daughter has an imaginary friend. This was adorable until they started arguing over toys. Oh good. Just what we needed around here.
Next time I hope she invents somebody a little easier to get along with.

Me: Oh Honey, you don’t need to tuck your shirt into your sweatpants.
Josh: But Mom, I have to tuck it in if I want to look so handsome. You know- like Daddy.
Can’t argue with this kid.

It’s a little frustrating to watch your child gag over the dinner you spent an hour making after you just watched them eat play-doh and their own boogers.

Josh wants to know why Yoda is sitting in a Bumbo during the Jedi Council meeting.
#validquestion

My daughter told the pediatrician she likes to eat carrots. Last year Josh told the pediatrician he likes to eat “hamburgers and coffee”. So I guess we’re making better choices this year. . . like the choice to prep our child for the pediatrician’s questions.

Sometimes you’re so used to looking for other people’s shoes that when you’re preparing to go run errands you reach into the shoe closet and pull out Avengers sneakers instead of your boots.
#classy

I’ve decided to just embrace this stage of our life and paint the bathroom Boys Who Have Trouble Aiming Yellow.

Some Strawberry Shortcake complaints:
1) Where are her parents?
2) Why can the cat talk, but the dog can’t?
3) Where are the characters meant to appeal to little girls like me? I suggest Pork Chop Petunia or Maple Bacon Betty.

Daughter is punching the air and yelling, “Hiiiiiiii-ya!” I ask her where she learned that. She says, “My daddy says he do that when he a little girl.”
So many questions. . .

January 10, 2013
by Maralee
19 Comments

Feeling Forgotten- Infertility Hurts

Infertility hurts.

I could probably just end this post right there and it would be the truest thing I ever wrote, but I guess some explanation is in order. I was thinking through these infertility thoughts this last week as I taped a radio interview on fertility and surrender. If there’s one thing being unable to get pregnant, then being unable to stay pregnant, then being unable to avoid pregnancy has taught me it’s that fertility isn’t something I can control. As my baby is outgrowing his little 12 month outfits and becoming less of a baby and more of a toddler I’m wondering what God will do with this next phase of our lives. Josh asked if he could have four more brothers. I told him the phone could ring at any moment and say there’s another child for us. We’re leaving the door open and the opportunities up to God. While maybe it looks like we’ve got our hands full with four kids (and there’s a lot of truth to that), the fact that I can’t control my fertility is painful.

Before the birth of our biological baby we experienced what’s called “primary infertility”. It just means we were unable to get pregnant at all. Now we experience “secondary infertility”. We’ve been pregnant, we’ve given birth and now we’re back to being infertile. I prefer to think of us as “intermittently fertile” since we’ve been pregnant three times, but with just one live birth. I remember in the first days or our infertility diagnosis just being thankful that this was primary and not secondary since word on the infertility street is secondary is harder emotionally. It’s tough when you know exactly what you’re missing. You know the joy of pregnancy and the miracle of childbirth, the ease of incorporating a biological child. You may be reticent to pursue adoption if you just aren’t sure the door is closed for another biological child or you’re concerned you couldn’t love an adopted child the way you love your first baby.

So here I am- packing away tiny things, giving away maternity clothes and nursing supplies and feeling the ache in spite of the ridiculous blessings tugging on my pants and demanding snacks. I am incredibly thankful for my kids and the beautiful way each of them came into my life. I am not saying I need more kids to be happy, I’m just saying the loss of control is hard. Surrender is hard. Infertility hurts.

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January 9, 2013
by Maralee
2 Comments

Infertility and Surrender

I was able to be part of a radio interview on the topic of surrendering your fertility. There’s a lot of our personal story in here and some thoughts on how we’ve seen God work. Hope you enjoy listening! I also have some thoughts written out on this topic that will be up later this week. Feel free to share your thoughts, too!

Listen to the interview here

Read my extended thoughts on this topic here

January 8, 2013
by Maralee
4 Comments

J-I-F spells “peanut butter”

It has been so much fun to watch my oldest son Josh learn how to read. A new world is opening up to him as he figures out that letters have sounds and when put together, they make words. His sight word vocabulary is pretty limited at this point, so he’s relying heavily on context clues. It’s a good strategy, but it does have its weak points. The other night at the grocery store I handed him a can of Jif peanut butter and asked him if he could sound out the three big letters on the front. He said, “Sure mom! ‘J’ says juh. ‘I’ says ih. ‘F’ says fffff. So it spells. . . peanut butter.” We’ll get there eventually.

I think I’m guilty of using a lot of context clues in my own life as I try to fill in the blanks for God. I’m just not comfortable not knowing exactly how He plans to work all things together for good, so I see the hurt and pain around me and want to jump right to what I think must be the answer. Sometimes I may miss the lesson He is longing for me to learn because I’m so quick to want resolution. This can make me act just like one of Job’s comforters as I try to explain what I’m sure must be God’s thoughts to someone in the midst of great pain. I may not have considered that what they most need may not be my reasons or answers, but a listening ear and validation that this world can be a tough place to live sometimes. I am so quick to want things to be better that I can act like it isn’t okay to grieve, but I have learned God’s love and faithfulness is so often found right there- in our hardest moments. If I can just be okay with not knowing how the story ends, it is easier to see God’s compassion in the midst of it.

January 7, 2013
by Maralee
10 Comments

Where you can’t send a Letter

When Brian and I were houseparenting at a group home I made sure every Christmas I sent a card to each of our boys’ families with a picture of their child. After our first year I also started sending a Christmas card with a family picture to the boys who had graduated or who had left our home whether under good or bad circumstances. Our first graduate to receive one of those cards was not a student who was particularly easy to love. But I can’t blame him. When he moved in with us he was 18 years-old and I was just 22. Obviously this was not going to be a typical parent/child relationship. He had been raising himself most of his life and wasn’t exactly ready to turn over the reigns at age 18. He came to us a stubborn and proud young man who just wanted to be free from accountability, but the court system wasn’t ready for him to be on his own yet. He was meticulously clean and organized, loved football more than anything (anything!), and believed Jesus could change a life.

We loved him, but he made the lives of everybody around him difficult. He needed to be right about everything. He got angry in a hot second about anything that struck him the wrong way. He didn’t want to be dependent even if it meant being reclusive. But he had a great sense of humor and worked passionately towards his goals. The bottom line of living with him– if you did want he wanted, he was a joy to be around. But being in a parental role often means you can’t allow somebody to just do what they want. This was especially true in our situation where there were extra rules to keep kids safe and provide lots of accountability. He had to earn our trust to be given privileges that every other kid his age would take for granted.

The day he graduated was a huge relief for all of us who lived with him and I’m sure for him, too. He drove away without saying goodbye. I actually chased his car out of the driveway and banged on the window until he stopped and I could hug him and tell him we were proud that he didn’t give up. We thought that was the last we’d ever see of him.

We were wrong.

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January 6, 2013
by Maralee
Comments Off on A Life in Status- January #1, 2013

A Life in Status- January #1, 2013

(Catch the craziness in real-time here)

Talking to my husband while changing The Baby’s diaper-
Me: And hey, could you toss this for me? (handing him the dirty diaper)
Brian: Sure. (throws diaper against the wall)
Guess I should have been more specific. . .

Josh talking to his little sister: I’m doing a Star Wars puzzle. Mom says this guy’s name is. . . is. . . Mannequin.
So close.

Daughter: Mommy, what that smell?
Me: I’m cooking bacon.
Daughter: Bacon?! For ME?! You my best mommy EVER.
I do what I can.

Josh: Mom, FOR REAL this is how pirates say treasure. . . “poop”.
Me: I think you mean “booty”.
Josh: Oh yeah. . . (giggling to himself, mumbling under his breath) “booty”.
Boys.

I was doing a radio interview by phone this morning about infertility. I had put the kids’ clothes out so Daddy could get them dressed without bothering me while I camped out in one of their rooms. I found out I forgot a very important piece of clothing when one of my children walked into the room entirely naked and yelled, “You forgot my underwear.”
It’s a classy life I lead. And thankfully the interview was pre-taped and they can edit that out. I hope.

Banging a pot with a spoon= baby stress-reliever, mommy stress-creator.

Josh: Mommy, this dinosaur is SO cool. I wish I could see it up close. I’d have to use a. . . a. . . a wine glass?
Me: What?! Oh no, you mean a magnifying glass.
Josh: Yes!
#ohdear

Husband: Well, I’m off to take a shower. Whoops! Almost forgot my phone.
We live in a strange age.

While looking for movies with adoption themes I found a website that offered this description of a movie: “Trilogy of films about two adoptees searching for their birthfather.” What trilogy were they describing?
“Star Wars”
#didntseethatcoming

Josh: Mom, when you tuck the baby’s shirt into his pants (note: baby is wearing a onesie) he looks like a daddy.
I’m going to pretend not to know Josh is referring to The Baby’s prominent potbelly.

January 3, 2013
by Maralee
30 Comments

Dear C-Section Mamas

Dear C-Section Mama,

I think I know how you’re feeling right now. As the heavier medication wears off and you start to put the pieces of what just happened to you together, there is a lot to process. Remember that birth plan you wrote? So much beautiful idealism. You watched “The Business of Being Born” and made your husband swear he wouldn’t let anyone intimidate you into unnecessary medication. You read “Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth” and informed yourself enough that you weren’t afraid of what is a beautiful, natural process. You believed in your body and your strength as a woman that you could do what women have been doing since the dawn of time. And then what started in the most natural of ways went all wrong.

And at some point when the contractions didn’t stop and your baby was turned all wrong and the room filled up with medical strangers and your midwife started to look worried and you couldn’t even open your eyes because you were concentrating so hard on just surviving the pain, that’s when your mind dreamed for a moment of the sweet relief that would come if you could just let go of it all and die. The fierce desire to see the face of the Little One you’d known only in your dreams and in brief movements and flutters was the only thing that kept you tied to this earth and fighting to bring his life to your arms. It was then you realized while this is a natural process, it is not always safe. While women have been laboring and birthing babies since the dawn of time, many of them also died in that process. Mother graves beside baby graves. Women laboring in Africa today who will still be laboring tomorrow. And the next day. And soon their bodies will bring forth lifeless babies who could have been saved with a surgeon’s skilled hand. Or women in generations past who labored too long with babies in distress who were born with brain damage from the oxygen deprivation of an extended and complicated labor. This was the moment you were initiated into the sisterhood of women throughout time who have realized birth was not going to come easily or naturally for them, in spite of their best efforts.

Rebecca Tredway Photography

Your priorities started to shift.

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January 2, 2013
by Maralee
19 Comments

Dear C-Section Mamas (an introduction)

My baby sister is pregnant. This is a long awaited baby (my sister experienced two miscarriages before this Little Man decided to stick around) and I couldn’t be more excited about his arrival- as evidenced by the ridiculous pile of stuff I have given my sister to help welcome him. I just can’t help myself. She and I have always been very different in temperament and our approaches to pregnancy and childbirth continue that longstanding tradition. I value information and put a high premium on research and being informed. . . maybe to the point of obsession at times. My sister tends to go with the flow and hope things work out, which they generally do for her. She’s had her share of heartache, but firmly believes in not borrowing trouble.

So while passing off the hand-me-downs for my nephew I should have known better than to tell my sister my long, complicated, awkward and uncomfortable birth story. But I didn’t. Sometimes I forget that while to me it is just my son’s birth story, to somebody else it may be unsettling and a harbinger of evil. Maybe by not hearing my story, such a terrible thing will not befall you. My sister (God love her, bless her heart) felt the need to get validation from my mom and older sister- two women with more typical, less traumatic births in their history- that my experience was, in fact, weird and odd and nothing she should worry about. Sigh.

I think she was confused when I cried. I probably would have been, too. And she also probably should have taken into account that it was my son’s first birthday and my mind had been preoccupied with thoughts of his birth all day. I was pretty primed for emotions I’m usually good at shoving down. I’m thankful we were able to resolve what was ultimately a miscommunication, but it was a very cathartic reminder that it’s hard to understand what you haven’t experienced.

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December 31, 2012
by Maralee
10 Comments

Why I’m Okay with Bible Ripping

I was sitting on the couch reading a bedtime story with my six year-old when I heard my husband from the other room say, “Who ripped this? Why? Why would you rip this?” I knew it couldn’t be good. He came out of the bedroom of our three year-olds carrying “The Jesus Storybook Bible” in one hand, and half of one of the pages (I think it was part of the Christmas story) in the other. Bummer.

We are definitely in the stage of life where we often feel compelled to say, “This is why we can’t have nice things” as the kids break yet another cereal bowl or knick-knack or even one their supposedly indestructible toys. My poor husband takes this a little harder than I do, probably because he still lingers under the illusion that maybe the kids can avoid breaking stuff if we just teach them well enough.

As I see it we have two options-

A) Only own items made of plastic, hide anything meaningful, and wrap the children’s limbs in bubble wrap.

B) Get used to stuff being broken.

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December 30, 2012
by Maralee
Comments Off on A Life in Status- December #4, 2012

A Life in Status- December #4, 2012

(Watch it all go down in real-time here)

The Baby is sitting in a pile of gifts. He leaves them to crawl over to his favorite toy- the trashcan.
Merry Christmas, everybody!

If you’re having trouble figuring out how to assemble a certain toy, Josh (6 years-old) suggests you check the little booklet that came with it. You know, the “constructions”.
#makes sense

The dog just ate the hand off an Obi-Wan action figure. At least if it had been Luke we could have said it was for acting out the Darth Vader battle. Sigh. . .

My kids are pretty good about giving me a couple minutes of privacy when I get dressed. Which is why I hide candy in my pajama drawer. #twobirdsonestone

Josh (age 6): Mommy, I love your shoes. They look so. . . American.
Right. . .

I asked the three big kids to play downstairs so they wouldn’t be loud and wake up The Baby during his nap. What did they decide to do downstairs? Start a family band (drums, harmonica, accordion) and sing “Deck the Halls” while marching.
I guess this is one of those spirit-of-the-law vs. the-letter-of-the-law moments.

The Baby steals a toy from his sister-
Sister: Hey! I was losing that!
A window into the mind of a middle child.

Is it weird that I was tempted to buy a $120 Kindle so I could get a free download of a book about composting? Must. Resist. Hipster. Urges. . .

Praying with Danny this morning-
Me: And is there anything you need to say sorry to God about?
Danny: God, I sorry for pulling doggie’s hair.
And that’s when I opened one eye and saw him currently pulling the dog’s hair while asking for forgiveness.
Sigh. . .

On the way to do my radio recording-
Me: Josh, should I do it like this (best monster voice) “Hi, this is Maralee Bradley on My Bridge Radio” or like this (best Southern accent) “Hi, this is Maralee Bradley on My Bridge Radio”?
Josh: You should do it like this (silly high voice) “Hi, this is. . . ” Hey, what’s your name again, Mom?
Yep. Sounds about right.